Audre Lorde (1934-1992) was born in New York to parents of West Indian
heritage. She passed away in 1992, a victim of breast cancer. Her battle with the disease,
which was chronicled in works like The Cancer Journals, was just one of many
struggles she had to deal with in life. Audre Lorde was a black homosexual female in a
world dominated by white heterosexual males. She fought for justice on each of these
minority fronts. Her writings protest against the swallowing of black American culture by
an indifferent white population, against the perpetuation of sex discrimination, and
against the neglect of the movement for gay rights. Her poetry, however, is not entirely
political in content. It is extremely romantic in nature and is described by Joan Martin
as ringing with, “passion, sincerity, perception, and depth of feeling.”
(Read the rest of this bio)

Lorde wrote eighteen books of
essays and poetry, for which she won numerous awards, including the American
Book Award for A Burst of Light. She received a Masters of Library Science
from Columbia University. After working several years as a librarian, she
became a professor of English, first at John Jay College and later at Hunter
College.

Lorde was a recipient of many distinguished honors and awards,
including honorary doctorates from Hunter, Oberlin, and Haverford Colleges,
and was named New York State Poet Laureate (1991-1993).

In 1984, feminist poet Lorde learned that her breast cancer had metastasized
to the liver. The moving title section comprises a series of journal
excerpts that both frighten and inspire: choosing not to have a biopsy, she
instead treats the disease with a stay at the homeopathic Lukas Klinik in
Switzerland, consultations with more traditional medical specialists and
alternatives like self-hypnosis. Her lifelong battle against racism, sexism
and homophobia has armed her with the resilience to resist cancer, and thus
"A Burst of Light" becomes not only a chronicle of Lorde's fight against
disease, but a view of one woman's sparring with injustice, whether the
oppressors are the South African police, the American government or
malignant cells within her own body. Although it rings out with passion,
anger and hope, the lengthy title piece is sometimes rambling and
repetitive. In refreshing contrast, three outstanding essays on black
lesbianism, the parallels between South Africa and the United States, and
lesbian parenting are politically specific and pithy. —Publishers
Weekly

Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer
Audre Lorde, SISTER OUTSIDER celebrates an influential voice in
twentieth-century literature. In this charged collection of fifteen essays
and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class,
and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change. Her
prose is incisive, unflinching, and lyrical, reflecting struggle but
ultimately offering messages of hope. This commemorative edition includes a
new foreword by Lorde scholar and poet Cheryl Clarke, who celebrates the
ways in which Lorde's philosophies resonate more than twenty years after
they were first published. These landmark writings are, in Lorde's own
words, a call to “never close our eyes to the terror, to the chaos which is
Black which is creative which is female which is dark which is rejected
which is messy which is…”

A complete collection—over 300 poems—from one of this country's most
influential poets.

"These are poems which blaze and pulse on the page."—Adrienne Rich "The
first declaration of a black, lesbian feminist identity took place in these
poems, and set the terms—beautifully, forcefully—for contemporary
multicultural and pluralist debate."—Publishers Weekly "This is an amazing
collection of poetry by . . . one of our best contemporary poets. . . . Her
poems are powerful, often political, always lyrical and profoundly
moving."—Chuckanut Reader Magazine "What a deep pleasure to encounter Audre
Lorde's most potent genius… you will welcome the sheer accessibility
and the force and beauty of this volume."—Out Magazine

“ZAMI is a fast-moving chronicle. From the author’s vivid childhood memories
in Harlem to her coming of age in the late 1950s, the nature of Audre
Lorde’s work is cyclical. It especially relates the linkage of women who
have shaped her . . . Lorde brings into play her craft of lush description
and characterization. It keeps unfolding page after page.”—Off Our Backs

“This book teaches me that with one breast or none, I am still me.”—Alice
Walker

Moving between journal entry, memoir, and exposition, Audre Lorde fuses the
personal and political as she reflects on her experience coping with breast
cancer and a radical mastectomy. Includes photos and tributes to Lorde
written after her death in 1992.

Of Coal, the poet and critic Hayden Carruth said, "For us these words indeed
are jewels in the open light."

Coal is one of the earliest collections of poems by a woman who, Adrienne
Rich writes, "for the complexity of her vision, for her moral courage and
the catalytic passion of her language, has already become, for many, an
indispensable poet."

Marilyn Hacker captures the essence of Lorde and her poetry: "Black,
lesbian, mother, urban woman: none of Lorde's selves has ever silenced the
others; the counterpoint among them is often the material of her strongest
poems."

Audre Lorde was not only a famous poet; she was also one of the most
important radical black feminists of the past century. Her writings and
speeches grappled with an impressive broad list of topics, including
sexuality, race, gender, class, disease, the arts, parenting, and
resistance, and they have served as a transformative and important
foundation for theorists and activists in considering questions of power and
social justice. Lorde embraced difference, and at each turn she emphasized
the importance of using it to build shared strength among marginalized
communities.

I Am Your Sister is a collection of Lorde's non-fiction prose, written
between 1976 and 1990, and it introduces new perspectives on the depth and
range of Lorde's intellectual interests and her commitments to progressive
social change. Presented here, for the first time in print, is a major body
of Lorde's speeches and essays, along with the complete text of A Burst of
Light and Lorde's landmark prose works Sister Outsider and The Cancer
Journals. Together, these writings reveal Lorde's commitment to a radical
course of thought and action, situating her works within the women's, gay
and lesbian, and African American Civil Rights movements. They also place
her within a continuum of black feminists, from Sojourner Truth, to Anna
Julia Cooper, Amy Jacques Garvey, Lorraine Hansberry, and Patricia Hill
Collins. I Am Your Sister concludes with personal reflections from Alice
Walker, Gloria Joseph, Johnnetta Betsch Cole, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, and bell
hooks on Lorde's political and social commitments and the indelibility of
her writings for all who are committed to a more equitable society.

More Books by Audre Lorde

The First Cities Lorde's first book of poetry (1968)

The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance Lorde's final last book of
Poetry (1993)